Theory of Human Thought and Sensation by Aristotle

Theory of Human Thought and Sensation by AristotleDe Anima and On The SoulGreek Philosophy 2124/27/2013David Maldonado|
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In On the Soul, Aristotle approached the concept of the soul from an essentially scientific perspective, employing elements of biology and metaphysics that encompassed everything from the concepts of substance, form, and matter, to those of potentiality and actuality. While Christians and other religious faiths have traditionally deemed the soul to be an immortal entity that lives on after physical death, Aristotle viewed the soul as united with the living body, and therefore unable to exist without a host. From his perspective, a soul is created merely for the purpose of development, which is only possible through the soul 's connection with a body or some other type of container in the physical world. Therefore if the soul is presumed to exist as the form of a body, the essence of the soul is then dependent on the body, or at least some entity that could be given life by it, for its own existence. Thus Aristotle purported that because a soul designates life, then every living thing, including animal and plant life, has a soul. From a broad perspective, this would mean that the ability to think and reason is not part of the requisite makeup of a soul, nor are the faculties of belief or emotion. However within Aristotle 's premise of all living things possessing souls, he explains that different entities possess different versions. He believed that what distinguishes the human soul from the animal or plant soul was its ability to hold rational beliefs and to exercise reason.
By classifying life into different levels, Aristotle was able to categorize plants as having the lowest level of soul, animals other than humans as having a higher level of soul, and humans, because of their capacity for reason, possessed the greatest soul. Therefore, according to Aristotle the human soul is a reward based on the sum total of our biological nature and our unique capacities as humans to think and feel.
Aristotle believed that there were three substances in which there was a distinction between form and matter: Matter which is the potentiality, Form which is the actuality, and the compound of form and matter (De Anima II.1). Aristotle breaks up actuality and potentiality into different grades and levels. When Aristotle says that the soul is an actuality, it means it is either first or second actuality. He tells us that the soul is: a first actuality (412a27): “The soul is the first actuality of a natural body that is potentially alive.” The first actuality is a kind of potentiality --- a capacity to engage in the activity which corresponds with the second actuality. The second actuality is the exercise of a function, while the first actuality is the disposition to exercise that function.
Aristotle in De Anima also discusses something which he calls nested hierarchy of the soul’s functions and activities (413a23). The hierarchy is as followed: A) Growth, nutrition (reproduction) B) Locomotion, perception C) Intellect (thought). These give us three corresponding degrees of the soul: a) Nutritive Soul (plants) b) Sensitive Soul (all animals) c) Rational Soul (human beings). Aristotle uses the term nested with good reason. They are nested in the sense that anything that has a higher degree of soul also has all the lower degrees as well. All living things grow, nourish themselves, and reproduce. Animals not only do that, but move and perceive too. Humans do all of the above, and also reason as well. A living thing’s soul is its capacity to engage in the activities that are characteristics of living things of its natural kind and conducive to their well-being and survival. Aristotle believed that anything that nourishes itself, grows, decays, moves on it’s own without being moved by something else, perceives, or thinks is alive. Therefore, the capacities of a thing in terms of virtue of which it does these things, constitutes a soul. The soul is what is causally responsible for the animate behavior, the life activities of a living thing.
For Aristotle, the mind (nous) is "the part of the soul by which it knows and understands" (De Anima III 4, 429a9-10). He also uses the term nous to refer to "intellect" or "reason." It is clear that Aristotle defines human nature in part by its natural tendency to desire knowledge. Furthermore, he posits mind as being the part of the soul which is capable of this function. Therefore, mind is what sets humans apart from the rest of the living world. In this fashion, one of the most noble pursuits is the study of mind, for when you study mind you study what makes humans human.
We must return to the faculty of perception in order to understand how the mind is capable of thought. Just as perception involves the sense organ becoming like the object it senses, so must thinking involve the mind becoming like the object it thinks. However, it must be questioned exactly what Aristotle means here. It could, as hinted at with perception, involves the mind actually becoming physically like the object. Alternatively, the mind could become like the object in much the same way that a blueprint is like the house. It is likely this latter view that Aristotle holds when discussing the faculty of mind. We can work through a simple example to understand why this would be so. When a person thinks about the country of the United States, it would be ridiculous to say that his mind has become the United States. This would be to say that the matter that makes up his organ of thought (remember Aristotle thought the brain was a sort of radiator for the blood) has actually become the country of the United States. It is much more likely that he meant the mind becomes like the United States when contemplating its form.
Soul is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or realization of a natural body (402a1). From this definition it follows that there is a close connection between psychological states, and physiological processes. Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an impression stamped on it are unified. Metaphysicians before Aristotle discussed the soul abstractly without any regard to the bodily environment; this, Aristotle believes, was a mistake. At the same time, Aristotle regards the soul or mind not as the product of the physiological conditions of the body, but as the truth of the body — the substance in which only the bodily conditions gain their real meaning.
The soul manifests its activity in certain “faculties” or “parts” which correspond with the stages of biological development, and are the faculties of nutrition (peculiar to plants), that of movement (peculiar to animals), and that of reason (peculiar to humans). These faculties resemble mathematical figures in which the higher includes the lower, and must be understood not as like actual physical parts, but like as convex and concave which we distinguish in the same line. The mind remains throughout a unity: and it is absurd to speak of it, as Plato did, as desiring with one part and feeling anger with another. Sense perception is a faculty of receiving the forms of outward objects independently of the matter of which they are composed, just as the wax takes on the figure of the seal without the gold or other metal of which the seal is composed. As the subject of impression, perception involves a movement and a kind of qualitative change; but perception is not merely a passive or receptive affection, it in turn acts, and distinguishing between the qualities of outward things. The soul uses the body as a medium.
Aristotle links the senses together with a common factor. The first sense that Aristotle talks about is sight. He believes that we perceive an objects potency to be perceived. I digress with an anecdote. I remember when I was taking Animal Physiology we came to the chapter on vision, the first thing the teacher said to us was that what we see is not what the object truly is. Since humans can only see certain wavelengths, who is to say that what we see is the truth about an object’s appearance? Who is to say what a “truth” is? Also, what if what is "red" to me is seen by somebody else, what I perceive as, "blue" or a perception of what I see as "green". Aristotle then discusses the sense of sound. Sound, according to Aristotle is an object’s ability to move air. Some objects have a potential to be heard while others do not. Every human has the potential to hear the sound as well. However, just because these potencies exist does not mean they are always at work. One that hears is not constantly hearing. Similarly, one that sounds is not always sounding. Aristotle’s third sense is the sense of smell. He says that to smell is a ratio between what is sweet and what is bitter. He also claims that some objects that smell sweet will taste sweet and other objects that taste sweet may taste bitter. The same can hold true for the opposite. The fourth sense that Aristotle discusses is the sense of taste. Aristotle believes that taste and touch have the most in common, because we are in direct contact with the object that we taste. There is a direct contact between the object and perceiver in taste is in Aristotle’s view a deduction that qualifies taste as a form of touch. Sight, hearing, and smell, are perceived through air, but can also be perceived through water. Therefore a commonality between these four senses is that they can all be perceived via water. When Aristotle arrives at the sense of touch he comes to an impasse. The organ for touch is something that cannot be defined clearly. The sensation of touch cannot be perceived through anything. Therefore the medium of touch perception must be present within ourselves. The final concept that Aristotle brings about is that every object can only be perceived in a way in which they have a potency to be perceived. The color red cannot be heard and the sound of bass drum cannot be seen as a color, or tasted as a flavor. (De Anima II, Ch. 6)

The objects of the senses may be either (1) special, (such as color is the special object of sight, and sound of hearing), (2) common, or apprehended by several senses in combination (such as motion or figure), or (3) incidental or inferential (such as when from the immediate sensation of white we come to know a person or object which is white). There are five special senses. Of these, touch is the most rudimentary, hearing the most instructive, and sight the most ennobling. The organ in these senses never acts directly, but is affected by some medium such as air. Even touch, which seems to act by actual contact, probably involves some vehicle of communication. For Aristotle, the heart is the common or central sense organ. It recognizes the common qualities which are involved in all particular objects of sensation. It is, first, the sense which brings us a consciousness of sensation. Secondly, in one act before the mind, it holds up the objects of our knowledge and enables us to distinguish between the reports of different senses.
Aristotle defines the imagination as “the movement which results upon an actual sensation…that in virtue of which an image occurs in us” (De Anima III 3, 428aa1-2)” In other words, it is the process by which an impression of the senses is pictured and retained before the mind, and is accordingly the basis of memory. The representative pictures which it provides form the materials of reason. Illusions and dreams are both alike due to an excitement in the organ of sense similar to that which would be caused by the actual presence of the sensible phenomenon. Memory could possibly be defined as the permanent possession of the sensuous picture as a copy which represents the object of which it is a picture. Recollection, or the calling back to mind the residue of memory, depends on the laws which regulate the association of our ideas. We trace the associations by starting with the thought of the object present to us, then considering what is similar, contrary or contiguous.
Aristotle believes that the capacities of knowing and perceiving are the same as the potencies of what is perceived and/or known. This means that all objects possess a potential to be perceived and that they cannot be perceived beyond the objects potential. The same holds true for knowing. You can 't know more than there is to know about an object without delving into the realm of imagination. When one begins to imagine, one begins to think more and more abstract which can laud to very false ideas that can 't hold true for anything that has to do with the object. It is my belief that the capacity to perceive an object can only be less than or equal to the potency of an object to be perceived. A person may be able to perceive less than the potency, and not be able to fully comprehend or understand it. It also means that an object has a maximum potency and the perceiver can never go beyond this maximum. Can a person really ever get to the maximum at all? The answer is probably no, seeing as our senses only work in certain ranges. We can only hear between a certain range of sound waves, see between a certain range of electromagnetic wavelengths, touch between certain temperatures (without our sense of touch being destroyed), and we can 't really say that we can experience the taste of every molecule in our food.
Reason is the source of the first principles of knowledge. Reason is opposed to the sense insofar as sensations are restricted and individual, and thought is free and universal. Also, while the senses deals with the concrete and material aspect of phenomena, reason deals with the abstract and ideal aspects. But while reason is in itself the source of general ideas, it is so only potentially. For, it arrives at them only by a process of development in which it gradually clothes sense in thought, and unifies and interprets sense-presentations. This work of reason in thinking beings suggests the question: How can immaterial thought come to receive material things? It is only possible in virtue of some community between thought and things. Aristotle recognizes an active reason which makes objects of thought. This is distinguished from passive reason which receives, combines and compares the objects of thought. Active reason makes the world intelligible, and bestows on the materials of knowledge those ideas or categories which make them accessible to thought. This is just as the sun communicates to material objects that light, without which color would be invisible, and sight would have no object. Hence reason is the constant support of an intelligible world. While assigning reason to the soul of humans, Aristotle describes it as coming from without, and almost seems to identify it with God as the eternal and omnipresent thinker. Even in humans, in short, reason realizes something of the essential characteristic of absolute thought — the unity of thought as subject with thought as object.

Bibliography
Aristotle, Tancred- Lawson, Hugh. Aristotle De Anima (On the Soul). Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Classics, 1987 . Print.

Bibliography: Aristotle, Tancred- Lawson, Hugh. Aristotle De Anima (On the Soul). Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Classics, 1987 . Print.